An engineering student stepped forward with his lawyer Tuesday to say he was left alone in a federal holding cell for five days with no food or water, apparently forgotten by the federal drug agents who detained him.

Daniel Chong, 24, a UC San Diego senior, said he was swept up in a Drug Enforcement Administration raid near campus and was taken to the Kearny Mesa facility. After questioning, he was told he would be released.

Then the DEA left him locked inside a five-by-10-foot windowless cell.

He screamed. He kicked madly at the door. He cried like a baby.

Soon, Chong said, nothing made sense. He could hear agents chatting among themselves on the other side of the heavy door, and other detainees coming and going from holding tanks nearby.

Days crawled by. No food. No water. No bathroom. He remembers biting his eyeglasses and using the broken shards to scrawl a note onto his left arm.

“Sorry Mom,” he tried to write.

The DEA acknowledged, in a statement to The Watchdog on Monday, that agents left someone in a cell after a raid on April 21 — until they found him and had to call paramedics. San Diego Fire-Rescue Department said that medical call came on April 25.

At the raid, DEA officials said, they apprehended nine suspects and netted 18,000 ecstasy pills, three weapons and other drugs.

“Seven suspects were brought to county detention after processing, one was released and the individual in question was accidentally left in one of the cells,” spokeswoman Amy Roderick said.

Federal agents declined to respond to follow-up questions on Monday and no clarification was provided Tuesday.

Their statement did not address how long the detainee was left alone, but San Diego Fire-Rescue said paramedics were summoned to the Viewridge Avenue administrative center at 4:42 p.m. Wednesday to transport a patient who was suspected of ingesting a white powder substance. The DEA said the substance tested positive for methamphetamine.

Left behind

Chong said the ordeal began hours after he went to some friends’ house on Friday night, April 20, to celebrate.

Early the next morning, drug agents executing a search warrant at the University City residence burst through the door, and eventually took nine people into custody.

At the DEA field office in Kearny Mesa, Chong said, he was handcuffed and left in a holding cell for about four hours. He was then moved to an interview room, where he was told he had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and would be released shortly. One agent even promised to drive him home.

He was then returned to a holding cell to await his release. The door swung closed sometime Saturday and didn’t open again until Wednesday. Chong said he was in one of the middle cells, with no toilet, no water.

“I had to recycle my own urine,” he said. “I had to do what I had to do to survive.”

The lights went out at one point and stayed off for several days, he said. All the while, Chong said, he could hear occasional footsteps and doors opening and closing, even from the cell next door.